


your methods dot the disconnect

by patho (ghostsoldier)



Series: a knife and a prayer [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dom/sub Undertones, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Voyeurism, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daud suspects they’ve both conducted their share of grim business in rooms just like this one – they are, after all, dangerous men – and it seems oddly fitting that they’re in such a room now. This was his first clue that Martin was not what he initially appeared. Most men, he thinks, would’ve protested their surroundings. Martin, on the other hand, seems to revel in them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your methods dot the disconnect

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I’m not going to pretend this is anything other than a blatant excuse for me to write kinky porn about these two. 
> 
> Title is from "DLZ," by TV on the Radio.

There is an _edge_ to Martin that Daud appreciates. Desire is stupidly easy to manipulate, which makes it boring. Confused, needy Overseers are ten coin a dozen: throw a rock into Holger Square, and he can all but guarantee that it would hit a man who either takes his vows too seriously or not seriously enough. The kind of man whose will is more easily plucked than a harp string.

He’d thought Martin was such a man.

He’s never been happier to be wrong.

The room is damp, chilly, and smells faintly of smoke and copper and other scents better left unrecognized. There’s a ground-in filthiness to it, the sort that will never come out no matter how many maids attack with it with hot water and vinegar. Daud suspects they’ve both conducted their share of grim business in rooms just like this one – they are, after all, dangerous men – and it seems oddly fitting that they’re in such a room now. This was his first clue that Martin was not what he initially appeared. Most men, he thinks, would’ve protested their surroundings. 

Martin, on the other hand, seems to revel in them, and Daud’s still trying to determine if it’s because Martin is punishing himself, or because the intriguing fount of well-concealed violence that drew Daud to him in the first place goes much deeper than he realized. He finds himself hoping it’s the second. That there is something in Martin – something raw and cruel, something with _teeth_ \-- that thinks of this gritty little room as home.

The things he could do, Daud thinks, with a man such as that.

Aloud, he says, “Strip.”

And this is what Daud finds interesting in spite of himself. What makes him feel a surge of odd, almost-affectionate amusement. Martin twitches at the order, and Daud can actually hear his breathing speed up, but where another man would already be fumbling with buckles and shrugging out of his coat, Martin does nothing more than yank off his mask and give him a look of narrow-eyed (if heated) suspicion.

“Why?” he says.

Daud leans back in his chair, lets his posture slide into something loose-limbed and deliberate. The widening spread of his knees. Martin’s throat bobs as he swallows, and Daud smirks at the way his gaze drops, helplessly, following the uncompromising line of Daud’s body before he seems to remember himself and snaps upright again. When he’s sure he has Martin’s full attention, Daud says, “Because I said so.”

Martin’s hands drift to his belt buckle, then away again. It’s fascinating, the way he knuckles against his own desires. His eyes are already dark, his breath making little puffs of white in the frigid air, and yet he still burns with an absorbing, angry defiance. 

Daud doesn’t doubt that Martin is as truly devoted to the faith as he says he is. It’s all there in the frustrated clench of him, the tremor of his fingers, the heat and self-loathing in his narrowed eyes. No, what’s marvelous about Martin is that he _does it anyway_ , and with very little of the cringing submission Daud would’ve expected from an Overseer.

Martin gives in, constantly and consistently, and he’s furious with himself for it.

It’s beautiful.

“I don’t have all day, you know,” Daud says. Martin’s face twists.

“I didn’t realize we were on a schedule.” His hands go to his belt again and this time he draws the thick leather through the buckle, sets it aside with a prissy fastidiousness that Daud finds deeply amusing. 

He has plans for that belt someday.

“Did I say we were on a schedule?” Daud says. “I just find your hesitation wearying. Gloves next.”

This is another thing he enjoys about Martin – there’s a gratifying unpredictability about him. Perhaps something sly will come into his eyes and he’ll peel one glove off slowly, deliberately, moving silently across the room until he’s standing right in front of Daud and only then will he pull the other glove free…with his teeth. Or perhaps he’ll back up until his back is flush against the door, and he’ll smirk that damnable smirk and say, “Make me.”

Or perhaps, as he’s done on at least one memorable occasion, he’ll put the mask back on and take everything else off, and he’ll start with the gloves.

He always does what Daud tells him to, eventually. It’s getting there that’s the interesting part.

Martin’s apparently feeling contrary today. He looks down at his gloves, then back at Daud, and says, “No.” 

Daud holds up a hand. The air around Martin shimmers green, just for a moment.

“I could hold you still,” he says. “Take them off for you.”

The sudden hitch in Martin’s breathing tells him everything he needs to know about that particular plan, which is why he immediately discards it. Too easy. “But…perhaps not today,” he says. “Carry on.”

“What, you’re not going to tell me the exact order I should take everything off?” Martin says, but promptly ruins his point by struggling out of his coat even as he says it. The gloves come next, more absentmindedly than Daud would’ve liked. Complicated buckles and snaps are giving way beneath Martin’s long fingers, and each piece of clothing that comes off is folded into loose, rough shapes before being set aside. It’s one of the most prickly and unselfconsciousness stripteases Daud has ever seen.

It’s strangely appealing.

“You seem to be doing just fine on your own,” Daud says.

Martin laughs breathlessly before toeing off his boots and his socks. “Imagine that,” he says. Bare-chested now, all scars and dark hair and sleek muscle, and barefoot too, balancing on the balls of his feet like a fighter. “A grown man, fully capable of taking off his own clothes.” 

His hands go to the buttons of his trousers but it’s his face that Daud’s watching. Martin’s grin is a wry, crooked thing; he’s refreshingly self-possessed. He pops buttons open one by one and hooks his thumbs in his waistband, and when Daud’s gaze drops to follow the dark line of hair arrowing down from his navel the grin widens just a fraction. 

_Smug_ , Daud thinks. He’s very much looking forward to wiping that smirk away entirely, and so he waits until Martin’s wriggled halfway out of his trousers and drawers before he says, “Stop.”

Martin straightens, looking puzzled and uncertain for the first time since they began. “Why…“ he says, and falls silent with a frustrated huff when Daud holds up a hand. His eyes are narrow again, the grinning arrogance of earlier now gone. His trousers are awkwardly rucked down around his legs and he’s bare from the mid-thigh up, and Daud sits back and watches and _waits_.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

A flush crawls up Martin’s chest and neck, washes over the sharp lines of his face. His cheeks and ears are the color of brick and he makes an aborted movement to cover himself, but drops his hands back to his sides at Daud’s small noise of warning. His cock is hardening under the heavy weight of Daud’s gaze; when he swallows, the dry click of it is audible even across the room.

“Can I…” he says, and in a low and dangerous voice Daud says, “I really have no interest in gagging you tonight, so unless you want me to walk out I suggest you be _quiet_ ,” and Martin goes very still.

“Good,” Daud says. The way Martin’s breathing goes ragged is very pretty indeed.

The kind thing to do would be to let Martin finish undressing. However, if either of them were interested in _kind_ they wouldn’t be here in the first place. So he waits, and he makes a show of waiting, and when he reaches down to adjust himself Martin makes a small, hurt noise deep in his throat and then flinches, like he’s afraid Daud’s going to change his mind because he broke some unwritten rule. The fact that he worries about that sort of thing is why Daud’s not going to change his mind, but Martin doesn’t need to know that.

“Go on and finish undressing,” Daud says, and the speed at which Martin gets the rest of his clothes off would be funny if the man wasn’t practically vibrating with want.

Martin seems marginally more comfortable naked than he did half-clothed, which is another peculiar quirk of his personality Daud plans to explore later and at greater depth. For now, he leans back in his chair and motions Martin over. 

He’s always thought the man moved like a predator, but it’s never more apparent than when he’s nude. Self-contained and watchful and _dangerous_ , like those big, sleek Pandyssian cats that live in the trees. Creatures like that, you can’t tame them. Lesser men would advise breaking them instead; that’s how the Overseers operate, all blunt force and torture, like performing delicate surgery with a gun and a garden shovel. 

Daud, on the other hand, is a specialist. Martin is utterly wasted on the Overseers, and the trick to claiming beautiful monsters like Martin is to make them forget they were anything other than yours in the first place.

It’s delicate work. Martin pushes back in intriguing, often infuriating ways, and Daud doesn’t want to lose that. It’s part of what makes him valuable.

He could order Martin to kneel. He could unbutton his own trousers, wind his fingers through Martin’s hair, slide his cock into Martin’s mouth, and Martin…Martin would let him. Oh, he might make quiet noises of protest, but the hands on Daud’s hips would be holding him still and not pushing him away; after Daud was finished, he would lean his forehead against Daud’s thigh and bring himself to completion with fast, hard strokes, gasping and shaking, while Daud rested a hand on the back of his neck and told him he’d done well.

It would be terribly easy to do this. 

But that’s precisely the problem. It would be easy, and easy is _boring_. Daud craves a challenge, likes seeing defiance flare in Martin’s eyes before it melts into slow, halting submission.

And Daud is, after all, a specialist.

Martin stops in front of him. Stands at ease, feet slightly apart, hands clasped behind his back, chin lifted. His eyes are on Daud, heated but otherwise relaxed, and he quirks an eyebrow as if to say, _Well?_ Daud thinks for a moment, then tilts his head forward and says, “Go on, then.” 

Adds, “No, not that,” when Martin makes as if to drop to his knees.

There is honest confusion in Martin’s face now. Daud can tell he badly wants to ask what he’s supposed to do if Daud doesn’t want _that_ , and that he’s struggling with a way to figure it out without breaking the rules. It’s amusing, in a cruel sort of way, and his mounting frustration is so evident that Daud finally takes pity on him and says, “By the Void, man, you’re smarter than this. _Touch yourself._ ”

Martin blanches, and for the first time since they entered the room he looks genuinely uncomfortable. “I don’t…“

He’s still hard, Daud notes with no small amount of satisfaction. However horrified Martin might seem, at least part of him is okay with the idea. He hasn’t put his clothes back on. He hasn’t walked out. He hasn’t said _no_. Daud can think of a thousand and one ways Martin might let him know that he truly, honestly has no interest in doing this, and Martin’s not exhibiting a single one. But he needs to make sure, and so he says, “Are you saying no?” and Martin jerks a little, like he’s surprised by the question.

“No! It’s just—“

“I understand if you’d rather not,” Daud says. Rakes his gaze down Martin’s lean body and back up again. Doesn’t bother to hide his hunger, his want. Martin’s expression is a mess of shame and desire and angry discomfort, and because Daud knows that any knife is worth twisting just a little deeper he says, “But we both know you already do it when you’re alone, so this really isn’t all that different. Tell me, Martin – when you’re by yourself in your Overseer bunk at night, do you think about me when you’re sliding a hand into your drawers, biting your pillow to keep quiet?”

He’d thought Martin’s flush couldn’t possibly get any darker, but he was wrong. Martin _glares_ , and it’s wonderful how he loses control of his expressions when he’s like this. Daud can read everything in his face, knows that every hit he’s scored is because he was speaking truth.

“Fuck you,” Martin snaps.

Daud grins. “Maybe someday.”

Well. That certainly got his attention. Martin makes a harsh, shocked sound and wraps a hand around himself almost reflexively, _squeezes_. “Outsider’s eyes,” he mutters. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“I will say exactly what I feel like saying,” Daud tells him. “You, on the other hand, aren’t supposed to be saying anything at all.”

Martin shudders. His hand is moving now, slowly, a little helplessly, like he doesn’t want to be doing this for Daud but can’t quite help himself. “What happens if I keep talking?” he says hoarsely.

“I leave.”

Martin nods, like this is exactly what he expected. His body is a clenched knot of arousal and uncertainty.

“Go on,” Daud says, very softly, and Martin closes his eyes and exhales shakily and strokes, and the expression of agonized pleasure on his face is one of the sweetest things Daud has ever seen.

It’s…surprisingly frustrating, to look and not touch. Daud wasn’t expecting that. In spite of the room’s chill there is sweat collecting in the little hollow at the base of Martin’s neck, the shallow dip of his collarbones, and Daud’s dismayed by how much he wants to lick it away. That’s not how this is supposed to go.

Muscles ripple under Martin’s skin. Head tipped back, throat vulnerable and exposed, and when his breath catches on a groan Daud actually shifts forward in his seat before he remembers himself and sits back again, feeling agitated and off-kilter.

“Open your eyes,” he snaps. Needs to wrench back control before it slips from his grasp entirely. “Look at me.”

Martin makes a soft, confused noise that shouldn’t be half as appealing as it is. The eyes that meet Daud’s are hooded and dazed and glitter with want, and whatever he sees in Daud’s face makes him catch his lower lip between his teeth and his hips jerk. There is no sound in the room save for Martin’s panting and the wet slap of flesh against flesh. It’s _obscene_. Daud’s throat feels tight.

“Do you want to come?” It comes out shakier than he intended, and Martin nods jerkily. Strokes himself faster.

“Please,” he says. Utter ruin in his voice, lovely. “Please, can I—“ and with vicious satisfaction Daud snarls, “ _No_ ,” and the raw anguish in Martin’s groan makes him want to shove the other man to his knees right then and there.

“I hate you,” Martin rasps. He’s squeezing the base of his cock, almost trembling, and he looks like he either wants to murder Daud or rub against him until he comes.

Possibly both.

“Hands at your sides,” Daud says.

“I hate you,” Martin says again, more emphatic this time, and Daud laughs.

“No,” he says, “you don’t.”

“Yes I do,” Martin says. “Right now? I really, genuinely do.”

He _is_ trembling, Daud realizes. Hands clenched at his sides, the lines of his tendons making sharp, clean shadows on his arms, his neck. He’s drawn so tight that the shapes of individual muscles are visible beneath his skin and Daud wonders what Martin would do if he traced the outline of every single one. Recited their names, vernacular and scientific both, before he’d allow Martin release. He has a sneaking suspicion it would result in Martin attempting actual violence, and the thought makes heat pool low in his belly.

That too, he decides, is something for the future.

Martin doesn’t move when Daud rolls to his feet and moves to stand behind him, although he twitches at the hand Daud trails up his arm and over his shoulders. “Don’t come until I tell you to,” Daud says. Even before he sees Martin’s vague panic he knows it’s not going to work, a suspicion confirmed by the way Martin’s whole body jerks like an electric wire when Daud reaches around to curl his fingers loosely around Martin’s cock. 

“Fuck,” Martin says thickly. Daud decides not to chastise him; he thinks Martin is past the point of caring about that particular set of rules, and the dazed frustration in the man’s voice nicely sharpens the edge of his own arousal. When Martin tries to push into his loose, unmoving fist, Daud simply takes his hand away and something tight and hot in him _burns_ at the sound Martin makes.

“ _Why_?” Martin grinds out. Drops his head back to Daud’s shoulder. Groans when Daud takes him in hand again and does nothing else beyond that. “You utter bastard, why won’t you do something, why won’t you _move_ —“

“Because you like being denied,” Daud says, and sets his teeth against the juncture between Martin’s neck and shoulder.

He takes his hand away every time Martin tries to arch into his fist, and it doesn’t take long before Martin is all but sagging back against him, a beautiful wreck of sweat and shivery muscle and _need_. The names he’s calling Daud have gotten increasingly creative, and when Daud finally tightens his fingers he all but _sobs_ and chokes out, “I hate you.”

Daud kisses him just below his ear, mouths at the soft place that always makes Martin go boneless. “Don’t come,” he murmurs.

There is very real anguish in Martin’s voice. “I _can’t_.”

“Yes, you can.” There is wetness on Daud’s fingers and the room smells like sweat and sex, and he slides his other hand from Martin’s hips to his stomach just to feel it shudder beneath his touch. “You have to. Not until I say, remember?”

“I hate you,” Martin gasps, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I…I _hate_ – I – oh _fuck_ —“ and then his voice rises and breaks and he’s shaking apart, babbling apologies even as he spills messily over Daud’s fingers. Daud presses his face to Martin’s shoulder and strokes him through it until he starts making soft, pained sounds, and after that it’s the easiest thing in the world to steer him towards the filthy little bed and shove him onto it. Martin is always at his most pliable after orgasm.

And he wants – well, there’s a lot that Daud wants, and most of it would be ill-advised at this point in time. He’s nothing if not good at the long game – in his line of work, you have to be – and when Martin shifts on the bed and blearily says, “But what about you?” Daud passes his hand over the knobs of Martin’s spine and says, simply, “Later.”

Later, when he can look at the pale expanse of Martin’s back without wanting to paint sigils there in blood and semen. Later, when the things he wants to do won’t get Martin killed or branded a heretic the second he steps foot back in Holger Square. He knows what Martin means, of course, but it’s impossible to separate the two. There are many ways to claim a man. The things Daud has planned…

He should probably leave. This has made for a pleasant break in his evening, but he has things to do. Information to collect. Marks to track. The men he’s left in charge are ones he trusts, but Daud has learned the hard way that trust only goes so far and if he wants to make sure everything is done to his precise specifications, he’ll have to oversee it himself and—

He should leave.

Martin half-sits, reaches for Daud’s trouser ties.

He should leave.

He doesn’t.


End file.
